Original Post — Direct link
about 2 years ago - /u/RiotRayYonggi - Direct link

Originally posted by luxanna123321

Lillia is sitting at 44.5% win rate acording to op gg after they nerfed all her core items. Pherk should shut the f**k up sometimes with his lies

I forgot to pitch Lillia buff for last patch :( hopefully she makes it for next one!

about 2 years ago - /u/PhreakRiot - Direct link

Originally posted by PickCollins0330

The approach they are taking to Yasuo+Yone is the correct approach to take to champion balance. The issue is they are applying it disproportionately. Yasuo and Yone get compensation buffs after Shieldbow nerfs but it took some very heavy pushback to get them to buff Samira as well (despite being objectively worse than the wind Bros and hurt more by the Shieldbow nerf) and Ashe, Aphelios, and other ADCs who build Shieldbow who are suffering from this change are basically just shuffled away and told to f**k off.

So either they need to start compensation buffing every champion much sooner or they need to stop compensation buffing so quick for every champion. It’s an incredibly unfair setup and that’s exactly what adds fuel to the hatred for Yasuo and Yone.

Phreaks argument is deceptive as f**k and he knows that. The complaints are not grounded in “they’re op”. It’s “theyre kit is abysmally frustrating to play against”. Yet Phreak will dig his heels in to misrepresent that argument and brush it away when they did not do the same for Samira, instead they buckled and threw her in the trash.

thats the issue.

I ty pretty hard to never begrudge players their frustrations. I don't think Zed is very strong but I accept that players don't like playing against him. And he's like 48% win rate for most players, so whatever.

But if the argument is "these champions don't deserve buffs" that's fraudulent.

about 2 years ago - /u/PhreakRiot - Direct link

Originally posted by Jiaozy

People have been complaining about Riot's slow speed at buffing champions that get demolished by itemization nerfs, except in a few selected cases.

Popular champions will NEVER stay undertuned for longer than 2 patches, just look at Darius: he lost the dash on Stridebreaker so he got compensation buffs after 2 patches, but most other juggernauts that lost that dash didn't.

Yone and Yasuo losing a few points of win rate, because of Shieldbow nerfs? Patched instantly.

Amumu gets nerfed into the ground because the items were broken while ALSO nerfing his core build later, leaving him in the gutter? Shit out of luck.

The Yasuo/Yone/Darius approach is the right one, but people are pissed because it's done only on popular champions and it's not the standard approach.

Most Juggernauts were fine after Stridebreaker changes. They could just go Goredrinker or Divine Sunderer.

Nocturne? Still great. Actually buffed by the changes. Gnar? Just go Sunderer. Garen? Still very strong for most players. Lee Sin? Still great with Goredrinker. The list kinda just goes on.

Like I'd see your point if the actual facts backed it up but most old Stridebreaker users just found new homes.

about 2 years ago - /u/PhreakRiot - Direct link

Originally posted by flUddOS

You can say it's a "proactive approach" but the reality is they have a limited amount of developers working within a limited time frame. Yasuo/Yone being temperamental balancing acts is a time sink.

For example, do you honestly think high mobility tanks are going to get proactive compensation buffs for the Akali-driven chemtank nerfs anytime soon?

If Rammus's win rate plummets 2% and lands somewhere garbage, then yeah. But Hecarim isn't getting three dashes off in a team fight (neither is Rammus) and that thing is charged to full when he starts combat anyway. So I'd expect there to be basically zero change for anyone.

about 2 years ago - /u/PhreakRiot - Direct link

Originally posted by RenegadeExiled

Hecarim was getting 2 dashes (E engage, R to follow), and now he lost that second proc because Akali was abusing yet another thing she shouldn't. "basically zero change" is such a stupid take

So I see your point but keep in mind a couple things:

You still get credit for the first ~150 units of the dash. Hecarim E doesn’t go a ton farther than that, which means “basically zero” still applies when we’re taking the entire nerf to be like 10 chem energy.

All of the nerds combined (4x as many dashes on Akali, no juice on minion auto) amounted to 1% off of Chemtech Akali. So again, basically zero change for Hecarim.

about 2 years ago - /u/PhreakRiot - Direct link

Originally posted by Aboko_Official

He is a dick online.

I've met him in real life.

I said, "Phreak!!!" While walking outside of Madison square garden during the NA finals one season.

Mind you all I said was his name and waived. And I was with like 4 people. I didn't ask for a picture, autograph, nothing.

And then his response, "dude can you keep it down I don't want a million people coming over here."

He is a dick in real life too.

Made sure to tell him in person and it felt awesome.

Editing to a different reply I gave:

If this happened, then I truly apologize for being curt with you. I have no memory of blowing anyone off at an event ever. At most I’ve said I had to go when hailed because sometimes I’ve got a schedule to keep or somewhere to be.

I remember walking around NYC and having packs of people accumulate when I stopped for photos or autographs and I’m cool with that, so I don’t know why it’d be any different this time: I tend to stop for photos or autographs.

Either way, again, I’m sorry if I came across rude to you back then. I truly don’t believe I’ve had such an interaction but I’m human so maybe I did and I forgot.

about 2 years ago - /u/PhreakRiot - Direct link

Originally posted by DoorHingesKill

they go vs other players who don't know how to play against them thus they get an easier life inflating their win rate

This shouldn't matter. If the entire population is bad at playing against champion X, which leads to champion X winning 55% of their games, then the result of that is that champion X is winning a disproportional number of games and is, on average, overperforming to an unacceptable degree.

Riot doesn't balance around what the game "should be" like, cause that'd just be a guessing game, they balance based on what's actually going on in the game, and in this case, that'd be champion X being unreasonably strong.

I've once seen a comparable argument about Cho'Gath's 54% win rate, which basically went "Cho is really old and very simple, so it's to be expected Cho players have an advantage over more difficult/newer champions whose players haven't yet been able to master them like Cho players mastered their champion."

Even if you were to entertain the thought that this is the case (it's not, Cho's win rate simply went up because Riot increased Armor+MR across the board while nerfing HP on items, a change that benefitted Cho'Gath's 'effective health') it wouldn't make a difference. The result is that champion X, or Cho'Gath, is outperforming other champions. Preventing this "one or multiple champions outperforming all other champions" is one of the goals of balancing the game, the cause of why they're outperforming (items, stats, player behavior) is secondary. It should be considered when fixing the problem, obviously, but the cause should never be an 'excuse' on why an overperforming champion shouldn't get touched.

Now, with that out of the way, the interesting part.

difficult champions like aurelion sol and anivia riven etc only get play from dedicated players who take the time to learn them

Ok.

and other game mechanics

I think everyone who plays this game learns its game mechanics, doesn't matter if you play Amumu or Anivia. Arguably certain roles encourage players to learn different things, but that's not what you're hinting at here so that's just BS.

popular champions like yasuo and yone get players to play them solely for champion design or skins or whatever gave them this high win rate

Okay.

making more unexperienced players play them and lowering their win rate

Okay.

What exactly is stopping inexperienced players from playing Anivia though? I don't think anything is stopping them. The 3150 BE cost maybe?

Let's have a look at this

Sadly I cannot adjust the colors, so I will highlight Anivia so you can tell her and ASol apart.

What do we see here? Riot describes "breadth", the x-axis as follows:

breadth is the number of unique players who played a champion during any given time period (such as a patch). If you, your friend, and your feeding top laner all played Riven, you’re collectively adding to Riven’s breadth score for that time period.

And depth on the y-axis

Depth is the average number of games played on a champion per player during any given time period. If you’re the only Yorick player in your crew, but you play the shit out of him, you’re single-handedly contributing to that champion’s depth score.

Riot further describes 4 archetypes of champions: popular, unpopular, niche and broad.

To make it simple, popular is when a champion is in the first quadrant, played by many individuals who each spam the champion.

Niche is in the second quadrant, played by a few individuals who each spam the champion.

Unpopular in the third quadrant, played by a few individuals who play few games on that champion.

Broad in the fourth quadrant, played by many individuals who play few games on that champion.

Those first screenshots contain a lot of data, namely those champion's stats between patch 5.24 and patch 7.16.
We can see A'Sol started out as pretty popular, for a single patch. Lots of individual players tried him out, and a lot of them played him multiple times too. That was patch 6.06 of course. See, when you describe A'Sol, one would think that after his first patch where people played him solely for champion design or skins or to try out the new champ or whatever, he'd move into the top left quadrant, the second quadrant where niche champs are. Niche, as in few players, but those few all spam games. But he didn't go there, he went bottom left instead. Few players, each with few games.

Here, to look at a single patch cause it's more concise, although worse sample size of course:

You describe Yasuo like someone should describe Ashe. Or Jax. Morgana and Orianna. Or Master Yi, if you're being generous and admit that maybe those Yasuo players do indeed play some Yasuo here and there.

But that's not where Yasuo is. Yasuo is up there. Further up than Anivia. He has higher depth than Anivia. Remember, depth = average number of games played on a champion per player during any given time period. Yasuo's is higher than Anivia's. Significantly higher too. We don't know the ratio of course, but both axes are logarithmic.

You think, because it's a common Reddit narrative, that the average Yasuo player doesn't have all that many Yasuo games. For that you blame all the first-timers, and skin enjoyers, and Samurai enjoyers, or high winrate enjoyers but that's not a thing. Well, it is a thing, but it doesn't drag down Yasuo. At least not compared to Anivia, which is indeed a niche champ. Just not niche enough. Yasuo has more first timers, but either they start spamming games on him as soon as they pick him up, or the million Yasuo mains make up for it by playing 5 times as many Yasuo games each than the Anivia mains play Anivia.

Yeah, hard to wrap your head around after reading fourteen thousand Reddit comments claiming Singed is the champ only played by mains, or Anivia, or A'Sol (whose players can't even come close to Yorick or Anivia in their commitment, let alone Yasuo).

He's top 5 in highest breadth (individual players) but also number 1 in highest depth (average number of Yasuo games for each of these individual players).

Tl;dr

1) if you think low play rate means only mains, no first-timers then you're wrong. The third quadrant exists

2) if you think a high play rate means inexperienced players make up a significant part of the player base, then that can be right (fourth quadrant, Blitzcrank) but doesn't have to be (first quadrant, Yasuo). Because no one ever cares about Blitzcrank type champions, and only uses this argument to demand a low Yasuo/Riven/Lee Sin win rate, let's just say you're wrong by default

3) if you were held at gunpoint, without access to OP.GG or Blitz or whatever and you had to point at the player who played his champion more often than anyone else in the current game played their champion, you should chose the Yasuo in your enemy team. Not the Singed or the ASol, not Ivern or Skarner, not Taric or Azir or Heimerdinger (weird teamcomp, I know). Anivia would be a decent choice, but the random Yasuo player is a safer bet. No one has more average games on their champion than Yasuo players. Yes, even after being dragged down my Samurai fans playing him for the first time.

Great post.

This is the argument everyone needs to read when they go "XD champ easy."

If Riot wanted to balance champions so that they were all balanced on 10 games of experience, Yasuo would probably stabilize around 60% win rate. Turns out Yasuo players are just better than other players but the game's on hard mode because he's balanced around them being so good at him.

about 2 years ago - /u/PhreakRiot - Direct link

Originally posted by J539

Your are just complaining because you suck against them. - Phreak

No, I'm saying players who are complaining about buffs are silly.

I don't begrudge players their preferences, bans, whatever. But to say the champions weren't weak after the Shieldbow nerf is preposterous.

about 2 years ago - /u/PhreakRiot - Direct link

Originally posted by RequiemRed

I saw Phreak at a grocery store in Los Angeles yesterday. I told him how cool it was to meet him in person, but I didn’t want to be a douche and bother him and ask him for photos or anything.

He said, “Oh, like you’re doing now?”

I was taken aback, and all I could say was “Huh?” but he kept cutting me off and going “huh? huh? huh?” and closing his hand shut in front of my face. I walked away and continued with my shopping, and I heard him chuckle as I walked off. When I came to pay for my stuff up front I saw him trying to walk out the doors with like fifteen Milky Ways in his hands without paying.

The girl at the counter was very nice about it and professional, and was like “Sir, you need to pay for those first.” At first he kept pretending to be tired and not hear her, but eventually turned back around and brought them to the counter.

When she took one of the bars and started scanning it multiple times, he stopped her and told her to scan them each individually “to prevent any electrical infetterence,” and then turned around and winked at me. I don’t even think that’s a word. After she scanned each bar and put them in a bag and started to say the price, he kept interrupting her by yawning really loudly.

Finally, some good f*cking pasta.

about 2 years ago - /u/PhreakRiot - Direct link

Originally posted by CasualOgre

Literally none of the champions you just listed are juggernauts besides Garen

Valid, but the point still stands. As best I can recall, all Stridebreaker users except Darius worked just fine on the non-dash version or found replacements that were similarly powerful.

about 2 years ago - /u/PhreakRiot - Direct link

Originally posted by patmax17

Thanks for pointing out this specifically, it was the point I was missing in the previous comment. So, just to be sure: high number of games but low win rate doesn't mean the players are bad (even though they put a lot of games into a champ), but rather that the champ is purposely kept "weak" because otherwise his win rate would skyrocket because there are just so so many mains. Right?

Yeah, basically. At the end of the day win rate is win rate. The champion performed X well over the last patch. Players ban accordingly (sometimes). Riot buffs and nerds accordingly. Sometimes it’s a really good meta for the champion. Sometimes it’s pure mains. Sometimes no one wants to stick to the champ so everyone is inexperienced.

At the end of the day, you don’t want to face a 60% wr champ on the enemy team or a 40% one on yours.

about 2 years ago - /u/PhreakRiot - Direct link

Originally posted by Aboko_Official

You're so full of shit. But it makes no difference to me. It was the night of CLG vs TSM. You were walking around the south exit MSG after the final game.

You don't remember, that's fine. I remember because at the time I was younger and thought you were awesome.

That experience definitely changed that and it makes absolutely 0 f**king difference to me whether or not you remember.

Edit: After thinking about this more it's really funny to me that you would accuse me of lying like that. You can look through all my comment history and see how many accusations like that I've ever made. Not once do I try to pretend that someone with influence ever wronged me.

It was seriously an experience that made me feel like shit. Not that it's your problem. You're not responsible for my feelings by any means.

You trying to accuse me of lying, yeah go screw yourself.

If it did happen, then I truly apologize for being curt with you. I have no memory of blowing anyone off at an event ever. At most I’ve said I had to go when hailed because sometimes I’ve got a schedule to keep or somewhere to be.

I remember walking around NYC and having packs of people accumulate when I stopped for photos or autographs and I’m cool with that, so I don’t know why it’d be any different this time: I tend to stop for photos or autographs.

Either way, again, I’m sorry if I came across rude to you back then. I truly don’t believe I’ve had such an interaction but I’m human so maybe it did and I forgot.

about 2 years ago - /u/PhreakRiot - Direct link

Originally posted by Aboko_Official

You also removed the original comment you made for some reason.

I really can't even understand why you chose to respond to me in the first place.

There might be a lingering apology in there somewhere, but the reality is damage control>apology. Otherwise you'd have no reason to delete what you originally said.

You really made sure to solidify any lingering feelings I had about you being a piece of shit.

The initial response was because I don't like character assassinations. I was on the subreddit already, I saw the reply, went through my memory, and was like, "Nah, doesn't sound like me." The fact that your initial comment was like the #4 chain and seemed made up made me go, "yeah, sure, I'll just tell this person off."

Then you were adamant about it.

I replied several hours later because the comment lodged itself into my brain. I kept trying to replay memories from MSG to see if I remembered doing something like this and couldn't.

I remember someone coming up the elevator into our dressing room and asking for photos (obvious no, half of us were in underwear and he wasn't supposed to be there). I remember stopping for pizza at a corner shop. I remember crowds accumulating several times out on the street. I remember walking around with my hood up at one point because I didn't want to be recognized.

But I couldn't remember telling someone to piss off. So I kept replaying the event as best I could in my head because what you wrote is such a stark contrast to everything I remembered.

I replaced the original comment, "/r/thathappened, it didn't," because honestly the reply could have been better. Yeah the internet lives forever but edits also exist for a reason. The apology was sincere. If I actually said that to you then I'm sorry. Honestly if I had somewhere to be I feel like I'd be able to just wave and say "Sorry, I've gotta go." I don't know what goal admonishing you would serve.

Anyways, I'm sorry you feel that way. Hope you have a nice day.

about 2 years ago - /u/PhreakRiot - Direct link

Originally posted by TothB

Plus "it has a 48% winrate, the champ sucks" isn't a valid argument either, given that we've seen time and time and time again that the type of player who plays a particular champion influences the champ's winrate

Champs that are exclusively played by onetricks basically awlays have high winrates, even when the champion is horrible, because onetricks are good at their champion. (for example, when asol's winrate dropped from 55% to 53% he was considered literally one of the worst champs in the entire game and completely unplayable because of how bad he was, but still >50% wr because onetricks were very very good at asol) Meanwhile champs who get picked up and played by inexperienced players and then immediately get quit after only a few games sit at super low winrates because the people playing the champ aren't devoting the time and energy to improve. See: akali back when she was completely broken, 100% pick ban in pro play, constantly terrorizing high elo and sitting at 46% winrate the entire time because people who tried to play akali were new to akali and quit before getting good.

Asterisk: They don't always have high winrates. They have higher winrates than if they weren't played by mains at the present level of tuning.

In 2017, Yasuo was top 3 for most-mained champion (I don't have updated numbers at my fingertips). Putting Yasuo anywhere NEAR 50% win rate means he's tuned lower than almost every champion in the game but players make up for it with their skills on the champion.

about 2 years ago - /u/PhreakRiot - Direct link

Originally posted by loveincarnate

https://www.leagueofgraphs.com/champions/winrates-by-xp

Yasuo goes up to 52% winrate with experience

Even more interesting, and a complete nullification of this argument, is that yone winrate increases a full 10% with 50+ games of experience, up to 58% winrate.

These champions are extremely popular and high skill-ceiling. Bad players love these champs and drag their average winrate down significantly.

Phreak is speaking, as usual, with one of the most shortsighted and self-involved perspectives possible.

You have several huge errors here:

  1. You assume all champions are equally "not-mained" before claiming that the "mained" winrate is the accurate number and so the winrate delta is actually how much skill growth is available. That's a fatal flaw. The last time I had hard data (2017), Yasuo was top 3 for most-mained and had one of the highest winrate growths for experience in the game. So a ~5% winrate lift for Yasuo should tell you a substantial portion of Yasuo players are already mains, which echoes my point.

  2. Unless you manually changed things, you were slicing only plat+ data, which, even a day later, only has 388k games. 388k games divided among 160 champions and then further divided into the subset of players with a lot of experience is not a lot of games. You're going to get massive variance. For reference, I changed Plat+ to Iron+ (i.e. all games captured by the site) and the Yone difference went from ~10% to ~5%, or 64th. I don't have a way to unentangle the true growth curve vs. mains vs. whatever else right now but this is what you get when slicing up the game too finely. For example, in Masters+, Yone also falls to about 5% winrate delta, putting him as 91st for delta and 105th for "mains" winrate. But this is also useless.